What kind of town or city did you live in? Did you travel around much?
Did you have you own bedroom, or have to share with someone?
Did you have pets?
What was your primary or elementary school like? Do you remember any teachers in particular? Continue reading
In the old days (from about the early-mid-1800s until the past 2 or 3 years) book publishing usually worked like this: the author wrote a book, and sent the manuscript to a commercial publisher, Random House, Faber and Faber, Akashic, there are thousands of them world-wide. The publisher employs professional editors to read the manuscripts and select (‘acquire’ is the usual verb used) ones with commercial possibilities. The author is then assigned an editor to work with to prepare the manuscript for publication. Continue reading
This might end up being a very short post. I’m an old married lady, and it’s been a long-ass time since I was on a date.
Let’s see what I can remember.
Generally, a date involves two persons, right? If there are three or more, it’s less likely to be a date. Is “threesome” or “foursome” a date category? Could be, I suppose, but for the sake of the discussion, let’s say a proper date involves two people. Let’s call them Sally and Harry, since writing gender-free is very difficult and awkward. I tried, and got into all sorts of Person A and Person B nonsense with a lot of clunky they/their interspersed. Continue reading
Tell us where in our glorious country you’ve been. Was it great? Sorry, silly me, of course it was great. How great? And where exactly do you go that was great?
Lots of Americans have been on family trips to the Maritime provinces. A drive around the shores of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island is a festival of small towns and lobster-binges.
Quebec City (the skiing! winter carnival!), Montreal (omg the shopping), Toronto (a shoe museum right across the street from the hallowed halls of the Royal Ontario Museum!) and Vancouver (Stanley Park, wow) are wonderful cities to vacation in, and the countryside in between is beautiful. So green! (Mostly.) Continue reading
The word ‘scent’ is very useful, it gets around the whole ‘perfume’ vs ‘parfum’ vs ‘extrait de parfum’ vs ‘eau de parfum’ vs ‘eau parfumee’ vs ‘cologne’ vs ‘eau de toilette’ vs ‘eau de cologne’ business. (These terms have to do with, more or less, a scent’s concentration.)
I’ve used scent since forever. As a teenager I was given a bottle of Chanel No.5 without having any real idea what a big deal it was.
When that ran out I couldn’t afford to replace it, and so moved on to Zen, by Shiseido. I don’t think it’s made anymore, and if it is, I seem to remember reading that it wasn’t the same formula.
Continue reading
During the past couple of years Mr S and I have taken two trips involving loooong plane trips.
The first one was 3 separate flights, with flying times of 1 hour then 12 hours then 4 hours. Reasonable connections. About 24 hours door-to-door. For a four-week stay. Jet lag not that bad, going or coming.
The more recent one was flying time of 1 hour + 10 hours, door-to-door being about 18 hours. For a ten-day stay. Jet lag going was unspeakable; coming home, not so bad.
It was the last one that got us thinking. Do we want to do this any more? Is it worth it? The hideous living death (and not in a fun zombie way) of being imprisoned in a tiny seat with your neighbour’s backrest and snores 2 inches from your nose? Continue reading
A comment by Badhatharry yesterday got me thinking about vaccinations, and particularly about what’s happening out there in the world of small children. Continue reading
It became apparent during the Ray Bradbury obituary post that a lot of people here are re-readers. Are you one?
We almost invariably start out as re-readers. Little kids will ask for the same bedtime story over and over, long past the point at which the adult is sick and tired of it. But to turn that on its head, I once had some small friends I read bedtime stories to regularly, and I loved reading them ‘Winnie the Witch’ for the umpteenth time.
I’m a serious re-reader. I read Colette’s ‘Le Fanal Bleu’ over again once every five years or so, except I can’t find my copy and am starting to hyperventilate.
Ray Bradbury lived most of his life in the Los Angeles area. Starting in 1950, when he lived in Venice, he took the street car twenty miles to attend a writers’ group that met in a library in Torrance. For the rest of his life he returned to that library every year to give a public lecture.
I saw him there in about 2003, when he was in a wheelchair, but despite that he stood up at the lectern to talk to us. As soon as he was done, he got back into the wheelchair. Continue reading
As a Canadian who has only lived in the U.S for the past ten years, I confess it took me a while to get my head around the significance of Memorial Day.
My first Memorial Day story is this: I was walking through a small suburban mall-plaza type area in Anaheim. I turn a corner, and whammo! coming towards me is a platoon of immaculately dressed soldiers. In formation, marching precisely along. Continue reading